Trump refused to say he would accept the results of the election if he were defeated. According to historian Douglas Brinkley, no major presidential candidate had cast such doubt on the democratic system since 1860. Only in the run-up to the Civil War did we see major politicians “delegitimizing the federal government” in this way. As Brinkley put it, “That’s a secessionist, revolutionary motif. That’s someone trying to topple the apple cart entirely.”
